Niti Aayog has come up with a new regulation system under which top educational and technical institutions will get greater autonomy, while those at the lower rung will be subject to government regulation.

Niti Aayog Vice Chairman Arvind Panagariya said that under the three layered regulation scheme, reputed institutions will have greater freedom to pursue research activities.

Once the layered regulation system comes into effect, institutes like IITs, JNU, St Stephens College, University of Hyderabad, IISc will have more autonomy.

On the other, middle rung universities will have lesser autonomy and those at the lower level will be required to follow government guidelines.

Panagariya said,"Even within the existing UGC regulations, there is way to start freeing up our educational institutions by introducing some kind of layered regulation, where you can give much greater autonomy to some of the better educational universities, institutes".

Elaborating further, the Niti Aayog vice chairman said, "So, we can have three layered regulation. Under the first layer, research institutions can be given full autonomy. (For) middle rung institutions, where people go largely to be trained to get employment, (should be given) some autonomy.

"And third is for institutions, where government has social obligation to provide higher education to anybody who wants, there we can have full regulation. This is the kind of thinking which is going on in the government."